Aftermath
by Ceslas
Summary: What follows directly after the stand down order on Mr. Universe's moon.
1. Chapter 1

_This is an insert between the Second and Third time Jayne says no to River, cause Mal wanted to know…_

**Aftermath Part 1**

_When the orders to stand down came, River cast her gaze from the crew to the soldiers and back again. She processed the situation and knew that any action on her part would endanger those who she had come to think of as family. She felt the violence of battle leave, felt her strength flow back to him. She had borrowed the flames, the power and used it to wreak death upon the mad ones. Now that they were gone, the power flowed back along the threads to him and Jayne somehow had gotten to River as she twisted into a swirling collapse, his arms wrapping around her and cradling her to his chest, safe._

"_Shhh, I got ya… not lettin' ya go." He murmured in her ear, voice low and growly. She tried to follow his voice, to find him in the mists surrounding her mind. There was nothing there, just her own thoughts. He kept rumbling, murmuring no words, just sounds. She grasped at the sound, felt the vibration of his chest against hers and she anchored to it. When he stopped rumbling, a wall of silence slammed into her and she let out an involuntary mewl of pain. "It's all right, I got ya… its over… don't gotta fight no more… its over Little Crazy." She relaxed as his voice filled the silence, took away the pain of the nothingness. He held her close and kept the growling rumble when a medic came to see to them._

"_I'm a'right, go see ta the others.." He snarled at the anxious soldier. He had felt her tighten in his arms when the man had come close. "Shhh, it's a'right Girlie… I'm here, I ain't leavin'…"_

The tableau was set for a fight, and when the order to stand down interrupted that no one had an alternate plan. The medics had done what they could to stabilize and treat their immediate injuries. Mal, Simon, and Kaylee all had to be moved to a Med shuttle. Zoë was triaged on site and tried to claim she would be fine without any further help. Crumbling as she tried to stand after her pronouncement made it clear she would require further aid.

Inara and Jayne were left, Jayne holding River in his arms, all folded up like a rag doll, boneless and limp. Her head rested on his right shoulder, away from the bloodied gunshot wound he had sustained. It felt superficial so he waved off the medic when he came back after dealing with Mal and the others.

"I should go with them…" Inara started, but her perfectly trained voice caught in her throat.

"Go on, I got Girlie here.. make sure them hun dahn's do their job right." Jayne replied in surprisingly soft tones. Inara was grateful for his lack of bellicosity.

"Thank you Jayne. I will return to _Serenity_ when I know what everyone's status is."

He nodded, neither one of them needed to say that River would be safer away from the Alliance troops. Inara followed a medic when he beckoned to her. Jayne turned and walked on silent feet away from the carnage of River's battle. He catalogued automatically how many were dead and how they had died. His lip curled in disgust at the smell of decay that surrounded the dead bodies. They had been most of the way dead before River had finished the job. Rot and infection tainted the air with a yellowed miasma according to his nose. Jayne had always been able to follow a trail easily because he was so attuned to what he smelled as well as the visual clues. Right then he wished he didn't have that skill. He was only slightly surprised at the volume of dead Reavers, knowing what he had seen in the Maidenhead. Unknowingly he squeezed River to him more tightly, some long dormant part of him wanting to protect her from the reality of what had happened. It was only a moment and he didn't even feel himself do it.

River, in her post-battle collapse felt nothing but Jayne cradling her to him as he carried her to _Serenity_; heard nothing in her mind, no voices, no screaming, none of the rage from the Reavers. She felt his arms tighten around her, his heart rate increase, the heat from his body grew stronger, enveloped her in a cocoon of warmth. She felt cold, chilled and it was soothing to have his touch to warm her. It made her realize she was still alive, blood moved through her body, carrying oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide… all the necessities of life, of continued living, was there in the red liquid. She focused on a point in Jayne's neck, felt him against her cheek. The repeated pulsar of life captured her attention. She followed the trail of the pulse up towards his face. Sweat, grime, and blood in streaks gave him a more fearsome aspect than usual. She felt, rather than saw, soldiers step out of their way merely from the snarling bestiality of his expression. They saw only death headed their way. River saw life, felt it more clearly than she ever had. He was alive, he was silent to her mind, but he blanketed them both in a protective haze of life.

He carried her up the stairs to the catwalk and she noticed the shuttle door before her.

"No… no… not a shuttle ride…" She nearly squeaked in panic. Her body began to tighten to struggle out of his grip. She could hear his words in her memory, _"No trouble now little crazy person. We're going for a nice shuttle ride…" _She had knocked him out then. She couldn't hear his thoughts, was reacting as though he still may follow through on his threat. A tiny voice in the very far back of her mind denied that as a possibility.

"Nah, stop yer wrigglin'" Jayne grunted when one of her feet connected with his upper thigh uncomfortably close to his man-parts… "We're ain't goin' ta the shuttle," She kicked him again, "Just quit it would ya! We ain't goin' to the shuttle." He snapped back, giving her a shake like a recalcitrant child. He passed the shuttle and made his way to the crew quarters. Figured Kaylee's bunk would be the best place for now. Was girlie enough and he knew they were friends so the crazy girl had spent time down there before.

He somehow got her down the stairs as she had gone all limp again after he passed the shuttle.

"Aw'right then, ya just stay here til I get back. I just gotta check on some things."

Curled up against the wall along the back of Kaylee's bed, River nodded silently.

"I won't be long, will get ya some clean clothes ta change into… don't be wanderin' off nowhere, dong ma?" He asked as he looked at her with hard eyes. He didn't want her to leave the room and he wanted her to know he was serious. "You don't get ta scrub the deck with my pi gyu for a third time Girlie. If I find ya out and around I will bring ya back here, ya hear me?!" He grumbled as he climbed back out of the bunk.

Jayne had seen the amount of destruction to _Serenity_ even in a quick walk through with a girl trying to kick him in his nethers, so he was prepared for the worst he thought. The galley was strewn with everything not welded to the walls or riveted down, but mostly just a disorganized mess. He continued to the engine room, even though he hardly understood what it was that made _Serenity_ fly. Tools were flung about like when Kaylee was in the midst of some elaborate repair or some bit of mechanic's magic. But the main rotor was still in its cradle, he could see that, and it spun on its bearings when he tested it. He figured that was a good thing.

Looking down into the cargo bay, the walls were all intact as was the floor, or so it seemed. What little cargo they had and Jayne's weight bench and barbells were lying about helter skelter. Exploded duct work and cable runs were hanging down over head, some sort of liquid, oil coolant from the smell of it, dripped from multiple places. Outside he had seen the trail of ship parts, the extenders were torn off their housings, thrusters nowhere nearby. _Serenity_ was well and truly torn apart, the machine and the family she carried. It wasn't going to be a quick repair job to get _Serenity_ space worthy again, or to put the crew back together. He shook his head at that thought. Knew that Mal would want to repair the ship as soon as the doctors let him out of their care. Wasn't sure if Mal would be able to put the rest of them back as well. The family, as Jayne had slowly realized, was as integral to _Serenity_ as the machine. Looking down on the wreckage in the cargo bay, he stopped for a thought to form. The thought that he wouldn't leave, he would stay with the crew for as long as Mal wanted him. He needed to stay. Life weren't what it had been. He wasn't who he had been. He didn't realize yet what that would mean. Wasn't the type to think that far ahead, or that deeply. Do the job, that was the thing. Do the job.

Turning, he made his way back to the bridge, knowing he would find that which he least wanted to see. He wasn't prepared for the sight of the little man, the pilot, Wash, trapped in his chair. Jayne walked over on cat's feet, quietly reached out to touch Wash. He laid his large hand on the pilot's cold shoulder, felt the stillness, the life no longer there. Closing his eyes, Jayne began reciting under his breath a few words, _"Our Lord which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in Earth as it is in Heaven..." _The words returned to him from his long ago youth. He had gone to church every Sunday of his life until he shipped off the border moon he called home. The words of the prayers sometimes still found their way to his lips at unbidden moments. No hesitation, he recited them from memory flawlessly, he knew what the prayer meant to them that believed, had learned it before he could walk almost. Weren't just empty words with no meaning. "_And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen."_

When he finished, he looked down on his crew mate, and he realized to late, his friend. With a final gentle squeeze, Jayne released his shoulder. Looking in the lockers behind the pilot, he found an old army blanket and gently wrapped it around the silent man, covering him from the harshness of the world. Wash would wait for Jayne to return with help to bring him to his rest.

Going back to the world of people he could do something for, Jayne retrieved a dress and some shorts for River from her room. He tried to not look to closely in her drawers or care about what he grabbed for her. On the way past Doc's room he snatched a clean towel and some soap. Girlie would want to wash up he figured. Still in gathering mode, Jayne went and found some protein chips and can of some drink Doc insisted was bad for a body, but right about then Jayne decided it was better than nothing.

River tried to follow him in her mind when he moved around the ship but all she got was a hazy image of a feral animal snuffling around the halls and rooms of her brain. She relied on her hearing to tell her where he was so she knew when he was coming back, the tread of his step, cat quiet but still clear to her, was different than when he gone by on his way to the bridge. She had heard him stop there, silence surrounded him, the bridge hum and hiss of power absent. She heard the stillness of nothing as she reached out for the presence that should be Wash. There was nothing, just a fleeting sensation of warmth on her mental Wash person's shoulder and then a flow of words drawing comfort to them in their familiarity. With her Wash image, she could hear Jayne's voice intoning the prayer, speaking clear and low, no hesitation, unlike when he spoke from memory in public. That was a new piece of interesting for her to analyze later, when everything was silent again…

He knocked on Kaylee's hatch before descending to see how the crazy person was doing.

"Hey, Girlie, I got ya somethin' ta eat and some clean cloths. Here's soap and such…" He put all the stuff he gathered on the bed next to her. Looked around the bunk almost nervous now that he had accomplished his mission of getting her stuff and checking on the status of the ship.

Wiping his hands together, he backed towards the ladder out. River looked up from the clothes and toiletries to Jayne.

"Thank you… not well… not sure where thoughts are…"

"Go ahead now and get yerself cleaned up a bit… water may still be warm, Kaylee always kept her water warm, used ta complain somethin' awful when the heater didn't work…Mal would say he would get her a new one, one a' these days…and well, you know Mal, just never seemed ta happen…"

"He can leave, she knows how to wash and change herself." River smiled at him benignly, the most lucid she had looked since before the flight from Miranda to Mr. Universe's. Jayne nearly sighed in relief, he wasn't sure he wanted to know what the Doc and his sister shared. River giggled in spite of herself at the relief on the filthy mercenaries face.

"Don't laugh at me little crazy person! How am I s'posed ta know what ya do with yer brother…' He spluttered, knowing how stupid it sounded when he said it out loud.

"Not crazy, mad ones voices are quiet… " She cocked her head as she looked at Jayne, "Hear no voices when near the smoke, clouds all, soothing in it's blanketing. Smells nice." She smiled widely at him.

"I dunno what ya think smells nice, cause it smells like rotten socks in here right now…" He retreated up the ladder as he spoke. "I will be up here if'n ya need anythin'. Just holler…" He closed the hatch behind himself and slumped against the wall, eyes closed, trying to breath and quiet his racing heart. He couldn't explain what it was that happening. The sight of all the dead Reavers, his crewmates injured, Wash dead, was making him light headed and angry at the same time.

Just then, three Alliance men came up the stairs and rounded the corner to go to the bridge. They were face to face with an automatic pistol as soon as they did.

"Ya can just turn yerselves back around." Jayne growled out past clenched teeth. His arm was straight, pistol gripped lightly, finger curled around the trigger gently.

Two of the three backed away, the officer in charge held his ground. "I have orders to do an initial survey of the damage to this ship. Step aside."

"Yer not ex-am-inin' anythin' past here, unless ya want yer men ta see the insides a' yer brain on the outside." Jayne kept the gun pointed directly between the officer's eyes as he spoke.

With a moment's consideration, the officer nodded and backed down. The three left as quickly as they had come. Jayne stood with the gun in his hand, outstretched until he heard the sound of their footsteps fade away and they were off _Serenity_. Pulling the trigger, the hammer fell with an empty click in the spent weapon. "Bang, yer dead." He grimly joked before he slid to the floor next to Kaylee's hatch.

Jayne stirred himself to rise after a few minutes had passed. He felt pretty confident that no one else would be coming to 'survey' the ship. He dared a quick peek down into Kaylee's bunk to see how the little crazy person was doing. River was curled up in some blankets, wearing the clean dress he had brought for her. Jayne sighed quietly with relief. He wanted to go clean up himself and it was easier knowing she was asleep while he did.

His own bunk looked like it had been tossed for incriminating evidence; blankets, tools, drawers, all disarrayed. The only things still in place were his guns. He had made sure to secure them solidly to the wall for just that reason; would be no good to have weapons flying about, could damage them.

Absent mindedly he ran a basin of water and found a wash cloth. A glance in the mirror confirmed his suspicions, blood and gore, grime and sweat. He saw the evidence of the last several days in the streaks on his face, the blood on his shirt, the pain across his shoulder from the bullet wound. He wasn't sure he recognized the man looking back at him. He was older, angrier, more frightened than who he had been. And bigger. That was the surprise, he saw more of a man looking back at him than before; less boyish selfishness, more the trapped awareness of a grown man. Jayne snarled impotently, he realized his own limits had been pushed and he wanted to retreat back. Bitterness filled his throat when he knew he wouldn't be able to. A simmering unease came over him, cowled him in its unforgiving grasp. He struck out at the image of the man looking back at him, trapped, unable to change the past, unwilling to step forward easily. The mirror shattered, sprinkling glass in a spray of reflective little men looking at him. He wouldn't be replacing the mirror.

She slept, dreaming of bonfires, forest fires, fires sweeping across open grasslands. All sparked by a single tiny flame. She flew over the fires, clothed in smoke. Hidden in it. Cloaked from the searching eyes of… there, the bear shambling along the edge of the charred forest. He was smashing trees down with his front paws, clawing upwards and pushing the burnt out trunks to the ground in crashes of leaden wood, puffs of ash and cinder billowing up around the fallen mighty. Roaring in confused rage, the bear destroyed trees left and right, tore them to kindling. His voice was raw and primal, broadcasting his distress far across the dreamscape. She flinched back when he bellowed out a cry of pain in the midst of his rage. He wilted before her eyes, grew foggy, translucent. She gasped at him vanishing before her, _No, must not let him fade away, never fade away_. Soaring around over the misty bear, she reached out a tendril of thought, of feeling to him… and hit a wall of red, of blood pounding behind her eyes making her head ache, throwing her back into an invisible updraft from the heated fire trail.

River woke with a start, pulse racing. She sat up quickly, wrapping the blanket tightly around her, trying to pull some of Kaylee's happy thoughts to her. _Serenity_ was silent, the emergency lights running silently on battery power only, no throb of life from the engine, the oils and fluids that ran in her circulatory system still. A distant hum of air circulators could just be heard above her own racing heartbeat. She looked around the bunk. It was a strewn with Kaylee's things, the parasol leaning against the wall, big pink hoop dress in a pile of crinkly fabric at the foot of the bed. Bits of Kaylee's life lay around in unrelated piles. River curled her nose at the smell of a bottle of some sticky sweet perfume that had smashed against the pedestal of the sink. It disguised the other smells usually present, engine grease, flowery incense, bleach and sunshine. River didn't know how to describe the scent that was Kaylee except as sunshine. The mechanic was all light and air and warmth. Sunshine. When she had first leapt out of her box, she had felt a piece that was missing, a shiny woman who could bring light to any room. Later, when they were both awake and aware, River had come to revel in that company. In her mind, Kaylee was Shiny, always there to find the light.

River curled up into a tighter ball, knotting her fists in the blanket, determined not to cry again. She listened for _Serenity_, for anything to tell her everything was well even as she knew it wasn't. A hand of worry closed on her heart- where was Jayne? Had he left? Had the Alliance come and taken him away? Were they going to come for her next? He had told her to stay here, to wait here for him… but how long? When would he return. She reached out her consciousness past herself, seeking him.

He had made the mistake of sitting down for a moment on the edge of his bunk after cleaning up. He had just put a bandage over the bullet wound, bullet wasn't lodged there, it wasn't bleeding any more, so he decided would let a medic look at it later if it started to bother him. There were a bunch of other, smaller injuries, cuts and scrapes mostly. He cleaned them and left them be. He didn't have the energy to worry about it just then. At the back of his mind a little voice tried to impress upon him that it was unlike him to not take care of injuries. Usually made for easier healing. Might be why he was still alive after more than twenty years of being a mercenary. The voice was insistent, trying to be heard over the haze of exhaustion. A larger voice muffled the logical little voice. Jayne promised himself he would only close his eyes for a minute.

The dream crashed into him as soon as he lost consciousness. Screaming bodies threw themselves at him, he felt burning trails of pain score across his body. Tearing at him as he struggled to fight back, writhing in their grasp, kicking and punching, roaring as he fought back. It was not enough, he could feel they had him, would pull him apart as he fell. A lull would fall over him, he would watch as he drifted up and away from the scene. A moment, and he would snap back to the beginning again, fresh agonies, battles of hands and feet and teeth tearing into him again. Drifting away at the end and then returning to the start, attacking faster, tearing more violently, afraid to fail because the clock would reset to do it again. And it did, until he lost track of what was happening, until he began to fade away from the dream, fade away from everything. A new, searing cold penetrated his dream awareness, thrusting him sideways back to his own body, his own awareness.. .

Jayne woke with a start. Sat up fast and alert. He had always been able to react to danger swiftly, find the source and eliminate it if necessary. Later he would allow himself to wake slowly, grouchily as a bear coming out of hibernation. But this time he was on his feet, hunting around for that which woke him. Eyes scanning his bunk, listening for sounds from outside, smelling for evidence of others. Nothing. There was nothing that could explain his sudden wakefulness. Then he remembered River.

With a quickness belying his size, Jayne was out of his bunk and over to Kaylee's, knocking on the hatch as he opened it and descended. He wasn't waiting for permission this time. He saw the little crazy person huddled in the corner of the bunk, curling and uncurling her fists in the blanket.

"Ya aw'right?" He stopped at the foot of the ladder, leaning towards her slightly, looking around for danger. He could smell the fear coming off of her, the slightly sour sweat under the soap and detergent smells. The broken perfume bottle by the sink filled the rest of the air with sweet sticky flower smell. He curled his nose in distaste. It was all wrong around the crazy person, wasn't her smell at all. Apples, always sweet tart apples would drift subtly from her under all the other smells he was constantly filtering. He didn't stop to ask the voice jumping up and down in his mind why he remembered that more than anything else. Wouldn't want the answer, not yet.

"No one, no one here…"

"Yah, cause I ain't standin' right here moonbrain…"

"Thoughts hiding behind a mirror of glass… pulse of life not surrounding, filling spaces… can not see behind the veil… The reveal.. is present…you came back." She looked at him for the first time, eyes focusing on his. Brown to blue they were caught in a moment. He saw her liquid depths, the cool space behind the brown. His eyes darkened, an awareness threatened to surface, an awareness he shoved away to join the muffled little voice in his mind. He shook his head, clearing his thoughts.

"A' course I came back, I told ya I would."

"He came without being called." She cocked her head at him, considering that.

"Ya, well, I thought I heard ya." Jayne stuttered in reply, not wanting to tell her he had dozed off and woken with a powerful need to check on her. The little voice wanted to jump up triumphantly except he clamped down on it so hard its voice squeaked and gave out.

"Thank you."

"Right, well, I gotta see what is happenin' with the rest o' 'em… you be ok here?" He tried to sound relaxed, confident. It came out tight and maybe a little nervous. Needed to know what was happening with the crew, with the future.

"It is worth fighting for…" River whispered to the air after he left the bunk. A smile on her face lit up the pronouncement with hope.

Will continue in Part Two… what happens next?


	2. Chapter 2

**Aftermath Part 2**

Weren't no way he was gonna be getting' away from it, Mal, if he was gonna make it at all, was gonna be off _Serenity_ and in the Med shuttle for a time. Simon would most likely be kept as well. Kaylee they would release after whatever Reaver poison was gone he figured. Left only Zoë, Inara, himself and the little crazy person to move Wash. Weren't no way any of them wanted the Alliance hun dahns touching their pilot. No how. And the crazy person weren't gonna be of much use neither he figured. So, Zoë, 'Nara and himself. That thought deserved another tip of the bottle he decided, pouring burning fire down his raw throat. Anger clouded his eyes in a red haze.

He was starting on a path that he knew would end with being good and drunk. Memories of the day washing away in a haze of alcohol. Didn't want too much be thinking about the dead and dying nor trying to see towards where the living would go.

The little crazy person settled down after she had her last out burst about what ever it was that made her nuts in the dark, quiet minutes. He went to the galley and began to randomly pick things up; moving equipment and the table back to where they belonged. Reset the chairs as they normally were. Swigged off the bottle every few minutes. The coffee table was jammed into the bookcase from when he had hurled it across the room while _Serenity_ had been spinning in to crash. Wash flying the injured ship to an impossible landing, an improbability Jayne conjured Crazy could solve in her head before he could even figure out the question. He stopped, staring at nothing while he considered that. Crazy girl probably felt everything as it happened. A long, slow swallow of raw whiskey followed the half bottle he had already had. He squenched his eyes shut, shook his head, hoping he could stop considering how much the girl might have known. Didn't want to know. More angry than he cared to admit.

Inara found him sitting at the galley table, square blue bottle gripped tightly in his fist. She slowed as she came in. The elegant walk and composed features were ragged and tired. Inara appeared on clumsy feet in the galley when night fell, hair mussed coils of darkness framing her pale face. He saw her swaying on her feet, her insides melted away.

"Jayne…" She near choked out his name, putting a hand out to catch her balance on the doorframe. He looked up at her, eyes still impossibly clear. Shaking his head, he poured down more whiskey.

"River?" She asked quietly.

"Got her in Kaylee's bunk. Sleepin' when I left her." Alcohol burned voice rasping the words out.

"She is all right?" Inara asked, looking to see Jayne's face as she asked. She saw a flicker of _something_ across his eyes, would have missed it if she hadn't been looking. She was surprised, it had a tenderness to it that she had never observed in Jayne before. But it was gone so quickly she almost doubted it had been there at all.

"Still moonbrain crazy, but nuthin' wrong with her a dose a sane couldn't fix. Nuthin' broke or such." Jayne grunted, not thinking too much on it right then. "Mal? Kaylee… Zoë, they gonna be all right?" He asked, surprised when Inara let out a soft moan of pain.

"'Nara? Ya all right?" He turned to her, he had never seen her let down her guard before, not with him. She seemed to sag down inside herself, crying but not crying either. Her arms wrapped around her body, still wearing that near nothing bodice and skirt from earlier that day. Jayne looked around himself quickly, spotting one of the blankets Kaylee always kept nearby. He shook it out and took it over to the slight woman. He noted to himself that he had been doing that a lot today. Blankets for Wash, little crazy person and then Inara, the most surprising of all.

"Thank you Jayne. I… they said Simon's wound would heal safely, nothing major was damaged. Kaylee will be released as soon as the toxins are cleared, maybe a few days. She will be weak but fine. Zoë they are keeping overnight, she fought them, but couldn't compel them to let her go…" She stopped, pressing her hands to her face, taking deep breaths, counting them slowly. Maintaining composure through habitual, trained techniques.

Jayne reached out a hand, touched her on the shoulder, squeezing comfortingly. His touch opened a gate in her, she dissolved silently, body wracked by sobs felt, not heard. She sagged against him and let him wrap her in his arms. He held her carefully, figured he weren't never tellin' Mal 'bout this particular moment. Couldn't think of a quicker way to a visit with the airlock.

She quietly let the fear and shock of the last few days drain out of her, let the large man hold her, saying nothing cruel or crude, letting him absorb her fright. She knew in her mind that he was not the person she would ever go to for comfort, but there was no one else. He was as close to family as she would find this night.

"'Nara… what happened to Mal?" He finally asked softly, almost just breathed the question out across her hair, smelling the slight scent of jasmine and some hot spice still clinging to her under the sweat and grime of the day.

"He… he had a been stabbed, a sword… kidney was hit… nearly bled out they said. Were surprised he had even made it back to us…" She stammered out, all pretense of training gone for the time being.

"He is a tough son of a b…" Jayne began and stopped, figured it weren't the time for those words. "They gonna be able ta fix him up?" He finished a little lamely.

Inara nodded against his chest. She was putting her pieces back in order, finding her center again. With a last shuddering breath, she drew herself back, let her training take over again. She gently pulled herself back from Jayne's embrace.

"Thank you… I will be fine now. It would be best I think…" She glanced down uncomfortably from his gaze, piercing and blue; so like in color and so unlike in power from Mal's. She always felt she could spar with Mal, joust verbally through whatever conflict they were having. Who she saw looking intently back at her through Jayne's blue eyes was not the same irritatingly rude man she thought she knew. There was nothing of that crudeness looking back at her, _through her_, she realized with a start. She felt like she was being examined by a carnivore sizing up her weaknesses, seeing through her defenses. It was not just Jayne looking back at her. Then he blinked and the animal was gone. "They went in and fixed what they could, stabilized him… said he would be in recovery for a few weeks… unless there are complications…"

"He is to tough ta die 'Nara, he'll be back squawkin' at us like a mother hen 'fore ya know it." Jayne tried for light humor, felt it fall flat on its face. Decided he would let it be. Little voice reminding him that he really had no idea how to talk to the Companion.

"Wash?" She asked tentatively.

He shook his head mouthing the word, "No." She looked stricken at that, knew it was true, but hoping for it to be false.

"Did you…?" She continued.

"I checked on him, need ta wait til Zoë gets back… can't do it myself, won't let the Feds at him neither." Jayne was blunt, not wanting to go further then. Inara nodded silent agreement.

There was a strained but companionable silence for a time before they both decided to go about getting some rest. Inara went to her shuttle, found a change of clothes and then returned to the Med shuttle to be with Mal and the others. Jayne watched her go, went to his bunk. He stood in the darkness, listened to the sound of nearly nothing.

Not sure why, he went and checked on the sleepin' crazy person. She was curled up in blankets, legs and arms wrapped in the soft quilts, hair fanned out over her face and pillow. He sagged against the ladder, arm hooked over a rung, rested his head against the side post. His eyes hooded, he contemplated the sleeping girl, wondered what was in her head, her mind all those months she was living amongst their thoughts and feelings. He knew he had been drinking too much to really know what he was thinking, but not so much that he could turn off the questions.

She dreamt, she knew it was a dream because she was flying, floating, over the burned out grasslands and border forests of her sleeptime bear's home. A bird of blues and greens, wings stretching wide from her shoulders. Catching the updrafts of heated air from the burned landscape. She soared over valleys with smoke trickling over rocks, trees still crackling with internal flames. She looked for her bear, flew as fast as she could, growing more anxious as she missed his trail, his scent. There was nothing but burnt and charred land everywhere. Flying faster, quartering more erratically, growing frightened at his absence. She called for him, her voice high and thin in the air filled with smoke. Exhaustion threatened to send her crashing to the ground, her arms grew tired, she saw her wings grow smaller, the feathers slowly fell away until it was just her, no longer the bird of her dreams. She plummeted towards the ground, not fearing for herself, crying out in anguish for having lost him.

He straightened up with a start from having dozed off while contemplating the sleeping girl. She was calling out, crying his name. _Fong luh_ girl was calling his name in her sleep?

"Jayne! Jayne…JAYNE!" She flung her arms wildly, kicked the blankets off her.

He swooped in and wrapped her up tight in his arms, was scared she would hurt herself flailing about, hitting the walls. Lord knew there were enough sharp corners and edges in the bunks you could hurt yourself on when you were paying attention, but she was just kicking and flailing about.

"Hey… hey there crazy person… wake up now… ya need ta wake up!" He growled at her, shaking her a little harder than he intended.

She came awake with a start, body went still in his arms. With a mewl of relief she pressed her face into his chest, breathed deeply his heat and smokiness. Her hands clutched at him, pulled him closer.

"Quit it now… ya gotta stop with this… I can't be here every time ya got a nightmare, dong ma?" He was angry and frightened at her outbursts. Second time in almost as many hours. He needed to retreat into himself and she kept pulling him out.

"Jayne… couldn't find the bear, looked everywhere… nothing but ash and ruin, trees shattered from the heat of fire, broken to splinters by claws and rage." He heard her words, he wasn't sure how concerned he should be that he understood her, pushed it away.

"I ain't leavin' but ya gotta sleep without going _feng kuang_ on yerself. I ain't gonna be here every time ya wake up." He didn't want to look at why he had been there twice already. With a final shake he put her back on the bed, pulled the blanket up under her chin. He had felt how cold she had been in his arms, almost like cool water had flowed over her skin leaving it shining and pink. Smooth and cool under his burning touch. He retreated quickly, feeling his own uncertainty.

She watched him go, drawing his shroud of fire smoke with him, her blanket of quiet gone with him. She could hear other minds in hers, tried to shut them out. When he was near it was only her inside, when he left the others snuck in around the cracks.

His heart pounded in his chest, he felt himself vibrating with excess energy. Weren't no use tryin' to sleep. To many died today to let him rest. As he told the Shepherd months earlier, seeing death made him want to move, to feel his body doing something, anything. Irritated with himself, angry at what he was seeing, feeling, he went to the cargo bay, started to pick up the heavier crates, the tools that had been strewn everywhere. Put his weight bench back in its place. Rewound heavy cables to their moorings. Anything to work off the energy, to ignore the crazy person's dreams and fears. Hide his own worry about Mal, the boat, the future.

He was still working when Zoë came in at first light the next morning looking gaunt and drawn. He hadn't noted the passage of time. Hands were covered in oil to the elbows, he had grease across his face from wiping his brow with smeared fingers. Sweat soaked through everything even in the chill morning air. Sun wasn't even beginning to peek through the ion cloud surrounding Mr. Universe's moon.

Night before they had doped her up so good she couldn't even raise her voice in protest, much less walk. So she had been forced to spend a night away. The morning when she woke had to have been one of the more unpleasant times in the doctors lives Jayne figured.

"Jayne." She had stopped just inside the cargo bay door, seen the order and neatness of the large space.

He slowed, not looking up from what he was doing, winding a chain back to hoist the mule up to its cradle.

"Zoë." It was a simple exchange of greetings between two fighters who didn't need a lot of words.

"Wash?" She asked.

"Yeah, ready for ya any time… got a place for him." Jayne hooked a finger over his shoulder towards the infirmary, had figured Zoë would want Wash to have a place to make his final trip to wherever.

With no more words the two of them headed up to the bridge, to the silence waiting for them. Jayne waited in the hall while Zoë went ahead to see her husband. While he waited, Inara appeared on silent feet, laid her cool hand on his shoulder when he looked down at her. She looked more rested and calm than the night before. He took that to mean Mal was doing all right. She smiled gratefully up at him, silent and aware that he wouldn't tell anyone of their conversation the previous evening.

Zoë called softly, wordless sound more like. Jayne and Inara could see the Amazon woman was holding herself strong for the job they had to do. Jayne had brought tools to remove the spear from the now-long gone man's body. Silently, they went to work, none of them needing to be told how to extract the pilot from his seat; just quietly cutting him free, gentle to not harm him further. It took more than an hour to work Wash free from his seat, to have him free of the murderous weapon. Jayne looked to Zoë when they were ready to move the body. His eyes entreated her to give him guidance here. She nodded towards her husband, releasing Jayne to gather the smaller man in his arms and carry him carefully downstairs to the infirmary where he had laid out a few blankets to wrap Wash in. Inara nearly didn't walk with the two warriors, Zoë reaching out to her when she tried to stay behind.

"Come, my man would have wanted as much of his family with him as he could get." Zoë said softly when Inara resisted. Relief flooded the smaller woman's face.

Jayne laid Wash out with gentle hands, straightening his arms and legs, covering the abused center of the man's body with a wrap of blanket. The frozen look of surprise and awe were still apparent on Wash's face. He had soared through the perils of airborne disaster, landing _Serenity_ in a slide into home base, and then been taken when the danger had been least.

River came gliding in as Zoë stood by her husband's side, holding his hand to her heart.

"To many voices, to much screaming… didn't see, couldn't hear…" The girl stood beside Zoë, looking down on Wash's face as she spoke.

"Couldn't a done a thing little one… no one could have done a thing." Zoë said to her, voice quiet, almost peaceful.

"Could have seen… could have said… heard…" River stammered out.

"No girl, weren't a thing to have been done. Some things you can't change even if you know they are going to happen. My man here, died where he oughta, no where he was happier."

"With you… happiest with you…"

Jayne withdrew sharply at River's words. He hated hearing the words she had to share. Knew she was right about Wash being happiest with Zoë. Inexplicably it made him want to tear into Mal, yell at the Captain for putting them all in this position. He knew they had all agreed it needed to be done, after Mal had placed them in the untenable position on Haven of choosing to go with him or stay behind. The choice there had been no choice at all and Jayne knew it. Mal knew that none of them could remain on Haven. Alliance had already targeted it for harboring _Serenity_, anyone left behind would be facing Fed charges or worse. No, the Captain had made the decision to go to Miranda, to solve the mystery of the Reavers.

Miranda was when everyone had been agreed that doing the right thing was all they could do. But Jayne felt his insides being torn out when he saw Zoë with her dead husband, defending his death. He turned sharply on his heel to leave, not wanting to see more.

"Jayne…?" Inara called after him.

"Need ta be seeing about getting' _Serenity_ outta here. Hun dahn's came on board to 'survey damages' yesterday… my thinkin' they should make good on movin' her, getting' her in the Black again… Mal would want that…" Jayne continued out, oblivious to his oil smeared state. Inara looked to Zoë, still holding Wash's cold hand. The First Mate nodded in agreement.

"The Captain would be looking to have her flying as soon as is possible. He lost to much coming here, he won't want to lose _Serenity_ as well…" Zoë spoke quietly still looking at her husband.

"Zoë? Is this what you want?" Inara asked softly, resting a delicate hand on the tall woman's shoulder.

"This is my home 'Nara, ain't got no where else ta be. Nothing changes that. My place is here." Zoë replied, voice steady and calm. Inara knew there was an undercurrent of pain and loss there, but Zoë wasn't ready to let her in to help her. Inara wasn't sure Zoë would ever let anyone in past that wall.

River was standing on the other side of Wash, still gazing at his face, perplexed.

"Feel him still here… gone, non-corporeal… not true awareness of goneness." She looked at Zoë from under a cascade of brown hair. "His oneness shares space with another. Two as one, never truly parted… shared memories, remembrances, holding half the experiences, must now hold all from two in one…" Zoë regarded the girl's crazy talk, knew what she was saying.

"Yes honey, he is gone but I will always remember the memories we made together. He will never truly be gone." River smiled in shy relief that Zoë had understood.

Their voices in her head were muted, pillowed in a cloud of grey shot through with red. Zoë, Inara, the Alliance soldiers outside _Serenity_. She could hear them all as a distant murmur in her mind, but none of them crowded in and overwhelmed her own thoughts. She was able to speak as only her. She had finally found a way to clarity when the Reavers had attacked them, shot Simon. The threat of them tearing through them all in their bloodlust had sparked her to action. She had utilized all her training, the dance of violence she had learned at the Academy, the ballet of strike and blow. River had borrowed her strength, had used her training, and had controlled her own actions without the spark of the switch in her mind. Had stood down when called upon to do so… been saved from oblivion by the red-shot cloud surrounding her. She groped through it, looking for the source, knew who it was, but was unable to find him in the haze.

Between Inara's rank as a Registered Companion, and Jayne's intimidating presence, the officer in charge of clean up and post action surveying agreed to transport _Serenity_ and her crew to the Eavesdown Docks repair yards. The unseen presence in the background of the Operative influenced all the decisions made regarding the Firefly.

Mal remained unconscious throughout the proceedings, unaware of the actions of his crew on his behalf. Inara spent most of her accumulated good will from several Alliance officials to grease the wheels of action. Zoë was cajoled and threatened into treating her healing back injury with caution by a sympathetic doctor and Inara. Simon was only able to add his words of encouragement that Zoë ought to take care despite how she herself felt about it. Kaylee, weakened by the Reaver poison went from Simon to Mal holding their hands, talking to them about nothing at all, just trying to keep them connected to the day to day world outside the Med shuttle. Inara would join Kaylee when she wasn't on the Cortex or negotiating with officials over the crew's fate.

Together they would sit with Mal, talking about anything except the devastation outside the shuttle. Mal was unconscious, but neither one of them wanted to add negativity to the their visits with the quiet man. Afternoons saw Zoë joining them by her Captain's side. The three would share tea and memories there. The energy surrounding that room was always kept as positive as they could make it. None of them labored under the illusion that Mal would wake with a happy smile on his face. Zoë more than the others feared for Mal's state of mind when he did regain consciousness. She remembered him after Serenity Valley, knew the depths the man could sink to. Seeing that made her more worried than she admitted to anyone.

Jayne spent his days wrangling with Fed soldiers to get _Serenity_ ready to be hauled up and transported off world. She would be hoisted into the belly of a larger transport and then flown as cargo to Persephone. He never visited Mal, only got reports from Inara. He didn't want to go and see the man he saw as responsible for bringing them to this place. Wasn't sure he wouldn't try to finish the job the Operative started. His world shrunk to getting _Serenity_ ready for transport and watching over the little crazy person who weren't so crazy any more he figured. But the crew was agreed that River should stay out of the Alliance's immediate presence. Her new found lucidity to the contrary, she may still be able to be influenced by some of the triggers implanted in her during her time at the Academy.

Whenever officials came on board _Serenity_, River would slip down to Kaylee's bunk, climbing into a ventilation duct over the bunk. Jayne had gone looking for her after the first time a Major had been through checking for hull breaches with some sort of scanner. Jayne had followed the officer around, glowering with undisguised contempt at the purple belly's rarified manner. After the soldier left, he had gone to Kaylee's bunk and stood under the vent, seeing the crazy girl's hair hanging down from above.

"What ya doin' up there moonbrain?" He grumbled at her, impatient with everyone and everything.

"Won't be seen, shouldn't be seen, not yet. To soon. Appropriate sequence of events must transpire before a visual confirmation is non-detrimental."

Jayne stood, staring at her uncomprehendingly for a moment before turning on his heel, hands thrown up in disbelief.

"Right, what ever…" He retreated to continue with the preparations to transport the ship. Girl was as crazy as ever he thought. Hiding like a mouse when a cat appeared. Weren't no normal there.

Inara had asked him later where River was and he had just shaken his head and gestured at a vent. "Look where ya want, gorramn crazy person could be anywhere. I given up tryin' ta figure on where she might be hidin'." Inara noted the big man's tone wasn't the gruff irritation of ignorance but rather the exasperated sounds of confused caring. She didn't think he even realized it himself.

He refused each invitation extended to come and see Mal, Simon, or Kaylee. Had just said he had too much to do, didn't like going to the Alliance ship, needed to stay to watch over _Serenity_. Zoë and Inara knew Jayne was drinking himself to sleep every night, sleep that only lasted a few hours before he was up again, working, patching, temporarily bolting down, and locking in place what had been torn lose in the crash.

Zoë even tried to order him to leave the ship, but he had flatly refused, ignoring the severe look the former soldier treated him to. He just would not leave off his self-appointed task and Zoë couldn't figure why.

When they hauled _Serenity_ into the belly of the transport, Jayne had stayed with River on board, kept the girl from having another of her screaming fits. She had been getting better, talking more clearly, helping with the work while keeping out of sight of the soldiers when they came on board for any reason.

The morning of the move dawned clear and cold. Everything had been done to minimize further damage to the Firefly. Jayne had gone to Kaylee's bunk where the crazy person had spent each night, found her sitting on the bed calmly, bare feet on the floor.

"We're gonna be movin' _Serenity_ today." He said bluntly.

"Knows, she knows." River replied calmly.

"Ya sound like yer still crazy when ya talk like that ya know." Gruff voiced.

"_Serenity_ knows she is moving today, has felt the preparations, is glad to be going from this place of destruction. Wants to feel star-shine on her hull again." River continued.

Jayne was a bit discomforted by the thought that the shiphad any thoughts at all, decided to let it be for now. He could feel the hangover from last night behind his eyes, the headache that dulled his caring. He turned to leave, to find the bottle for a little hair of the dog cure.

"Stay… please." River implored quietly.

"What?" He asked, he had heard her, but he didn't want to stay.

"Stay, quiet when you are here. Won't talk, better, you'll see." She didn't plead, just stated it factually. "Am frightened to be alone."

"Killer woman like yerself, afraid a something'?" He replied caustically.

She nodded quietly, brown eyes gazing at him calmly. He felt himself glaring back, looking past her eyes, tracker looking for clues to route taken by quarry. Saw a reflection looking back at him, feral eyes gazing at him from his own face. He squinted, curled his lip as an involuntary growl passed his lips.

She blinked and the reflection was gone. Jayne was looking at the little crazy person again, seeing only her. He tore his gaze away and started up the ladder.

"I jus' came ta check on ya, tell ya we were movin' soon. I ain't stayin'." He said bluntly and climbed out of the bunk. He was done being her safety blanket he decided right then.

River watched him go, saw his body language shake off that which he couldn't ever rid himself of. He would be her safety even though he didn't know it.

When _Serenity_ started to move, to swing in the grip of a gantry crane, River came out of the bunk, went to the galley where she knew Jayne would be. He was nursing his hangover with a bottle, body slumped in the couch. She walked over and sat down next to him, neither spoke, just sat and felt the sway and swing of the ship as she was carried.

"Not a moonbrain." River stated calmly after sitting quietly for nearly an hour.

"Aw right. Yer just a Little Crazy Person then." Jayne answered, most of the way past the hangover and into fully drunk territory again. He saluted her with the almost empty bottle, eyes clear but expression bleary.

"Drunk." She said.

"Yup… that I am…" He answered.

"Keeps the red away."

"Huh?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Aftermath Part Three**

"Yeah, dog's not half so scary without his master holdin' his leash now is he?"

Badger casually brushed past Jayne, bigger man barely keeping his hand from reaching out and snapping the little lord's neck. Only the presence of the four guns he could see, and several he couldn't, kept him rooted to the spot. "See, I know you don't want to be makin' that call without the Sergeant…. fine Captain that he is now…"

Badger continued sauntering around Jayne, wiping his chin genteelly, juice from an orange slice having escaped his lips. "Wouldn't want to be the one responsible for losing that old deathtrap a' his now would ya'?"

"Ain't here lookin' fer ya ta do nuthin' ya don't do every day…" Jayne growled as his eyes swept the room, secure in his knowledge of the lay out.

"Now you know I only do business with the Captains of ships here in my town. Far as I see, the law says I can take my fee in part ownership if it is someone other than the Captain, or if the Captain isn't in a capacity to deal… And I know my rules." Badger smirked at the last comment. Jayne knew there had to be a reason the petty crime lord hadn't been killed along with most of Mal's other sources. He figured it had to be payoffs between Badger and the Alliance. Jayne curled his lip into a sneer of disdain.

Changing tactics, Badger offered conspiratorially, "Could come work for me, can always use a man good with a gun. And I hear you got a reputation as a tracker?"

"Ya done fallen outta yer tree little man, thinking ta get me on yer side." Jayne nearly snorted, drawing himself up taller.

"My side? Oh, now it's my side is it? Isn't that just a funny thought gents." Badger swept his arm to include his men who all appropriately smiled and laughed at his joke. "You are a little man in a very big pond here my friend, remember who you are coming beggin' for help from." Badger's tone hardened, threat implicit.

Jayne shook his head, muttering, "_Gûnkāi_ …"

"What did you just say?" Badger turned from appraising some shiny trinket.

"Nuthin', ain't got nuthin' ta say ta you…" Jayne said, looking straight at the bowlered man, eyes sharp and intense.

"Now I am thinking you are getting to be too comfortable with your Captain's absence in command and you are trying to scare honest business men like myself into selling you the specialty parts you need with your intimidating manner. But see, I know something you don't… young bird on your ship, still there isn't she? Yeah, I can see from your face she is… well, I know she could be right useful to me. So why don't we forego discussin' payment, that you can't make anyways, and make a trade. Your bird for that converter?"

"_Bu_ _zhong yong_ _chwen joo_…" Jayne snarled, face twisted in hate.

Badger snapped his head back towards Jayne at the insult and took the tone of an offended chieftain. "What was that? Think you are a big man do ya? See if you can find that converter anywhere else… then we can see who the big man here is."

With a negligent wave of his hand, Badger turned his back on Jayne. "Get this _wu zou miaozi_ _xiăo tōu _out of my sight. He forgets who he is… Aye… thought I might go get a piece of that little girl while I wait for you to come crawling back for that part you so desperately need."

Jayne lunged with a guttural roar at the little man at that threat, barely stopped in his forward momentum, the sharp report of gunshots, a hit to his back and a through and through to his thigh felling him on the spot. Badger squatted down to look the bigger man in the eye.

"You don't know who you are dealing with. This is _my_ world, _my_ business… I decide who I deal with, and how I get paid."

Standing up, Badger gestured to his men to get rid of the fallen merc.

Jayne, half-dragged, half-carried out of Badger's office, was dumped unceremoniously in an alley not far off. He could feel burning pain across his shoulders, wetness soaking his jacket to his back. His leg was numb, blood pooling beside him. He knew it was a serious hit, could feel the loss of strength. Quickly, he pulled his belt out and snugged it around his leg above the gunshot wound. He knew it is only a temporary fix, but he needed to get the bleeding stopped, needed to get back to the ship to stop Badger and his men from carrying through on their threat.

He could feel his shoulders stiffening, the red he had seen when Badger threatened now clearly coming through his clothes. With a groan, he wrenched himself to his feet. Hanging on the wall for support, he made his way towards _Serenity_.

He was most of the way there, staying out of sight along the way when he saw Zoë coming across the square, body set with tension. His eyes narrowed as he took in her expression. Murderous, hatefulness poured off her every movement. He hung back against a wall, seeing Badger approach the tall woman. Little man tipping his bowler back on his head as he looked up at Zoë. Jayne could just make out their conversation from where he stood in shadow.

"Yeah, I seen your merc. Tried ta intimate that I should be sellin' him a converter instead of coming with his Captain. You know the rules little girl." Badger's eyes glinted mischievously. He knew that the warrior woman would rise to the challenge.

"Funny you should still be dealing after Miranda." Zoë calmly answered, no further offering of apology for Jayne going over Mal's head.

"Yeah, sometime business gets wonky after folks like your own self disrupt the order of things. Some of us just know how to ride the beast of commerce is all." Badger smiled.

"We need that converter, know you have a stock, willing to pay you." Zoë got to the point, not following Badger's opening.

"And I don't think I will be selling it to you little girl. What I want you won't pay. Little girls and all being worth what they are around here.." Badger grinned evilly at that .

"Come again?" Zoë was confused.

"I told your merc, and I will tell you, them converters are for sale only if I get that little dark-haired girl, she has a certain value to me…" Badger winked and licked his lips. Zoë went for her mare's leg but stayed her had at the sight of two guns pointed at her head. "Might be wanting to rethink that response or you may end up joining your big friend somewhere real peaceable and lonely." Badger grinned broadly at that.

"Jayne came to you?" Zoë asked, barely containing her surprise.

"Crawled in on his belly lookin' for a handout more like. Seems he's developed a sense a' honor to your Captain. Sad really, won't be able to see the Sergeant's face when he finds out he got another gorramn fool to follow him through that valley…" Badger shook his head in mock sadness. "Never thought I'd see the day that the offer of money wouldn't turn Jayne Cobb's hand to new work."

"Where is he?" Zoë was getting tense, new information about Jayne slotting in with Badger's comment about him being somewhere peaceable.

"No longer a concern of mine little girl. Was a little too defensive about my costs. So, eliminated a middle man is all." His grin and the cross cut of his hand across his throat was signal enough to Zoë that she ought to start worrying about where she might find the merc.

Ignoring her obvious realization of his method of cutting out the middle man, Badger continued, "Beside, doing business with you and your crew is tough on my other clients. Brings unwanted attention to them. Dong ma?" He turned to walk away from her, tossing back over his shoulder, "Mr. Cairo may be able to help you, I hear his standards are, hmm, more, _flexible_." The two guns stayed, malicious grins on their faces. When Zoë went to go around them, one grabbed her arm and the other reached out to take her by the front of her coat.

Two small pops, crimson dots flowered in the middle of each man's forehead. Surprised looking, they crumbled to the ground.

Zoë whipped around, saw Badger still making his way through the crowd, two more hired guns trailing after him. Shaking her head, she turned back towards _Serenity_. Her eyes swept over the surrounding area and caught a familiar shape in the shadows of a nearby building.

Slipping through the milling tradesmen and travelers, Zoë made her way to the shadows.

"Jayne?" She saw the big man leaning on a wall, eyes a little glassy, but still alert. His left arm hung at his side, limp, still grasping a gun dwarfed by his hand.

"Hey Zoë." He replied, voice cracking a little. He didn't think he wanted to try and walk any further. The pain in his back was extending down to his legs, numbness creeping into his limbs.

Zoë moved around to look at the darkness she could see seeping across his shoulder and the dark pool forming around his right boot, pant leg clinging to his thigh and calf.

"_Wo de ma_…" She saw that the back of his heavy army jacket was soaked in blood, torn across his shoulders. And she could see the heaviness of his lean against the wall.

"What happened?"

Jayne snorted, winced, "Little hun dahn didn't like ta be asked ta sell his precious parts."

Zoë pulled Jayne's arm over her shoulder and they started to make their way back to _Serenity_, she half-dragging, half-supporting the big man as he stumbled. Zoë could feel the wetness soaking through her clothes as well. She knew he was losing blood too quickly, needed to get to Simon quickly.

Jayne kept a hold of the gun, tried to stay focused on the crowd that was parting around them as they made their way back to the ship. Too many people looking at them curiously, too many eyes taking in the condition of the big man and the woman with him.

A cry, a yell, the crowd parted for a child running frantically from the grasp of a gang of young men, armed with knives and intent on catching the urchin. Zoë and Jayne were right in the child's path, blocking his way. Last desperate dodge, the little boy slipped past them, under a table and away. The young men shoved their way through, careening people out of their path. Jayne took in the sight of the knives, calculated their likelihood of using them and didn't like the odds. Groaning with the effort, he twisted around, throwing his bulk sideways into the younger men, preventing them from continuing their pursuit.

Zoë drew her mare's leg as soon as Jayne made the opening. Bead on the obvious leaders head. "Might want to be taking yourselves back where you came from." She said softly, dangerous.

Jayne had laid out one of the others, himself barely upright, head hanging, spent from the mere effort. Zoë allowed herself one quick flick of her eyes to check on him, was concerned at his condition. It was rare to see the big man spent. She knew that she had better get him back to the ship, fast, or she would be carrying him.

Fortunately the young street toughs, with only her mare's leg and the big man's bulk to intimidate them, ran.

Jayne swayed on his feet as the crowd resumed its normal afternoon pattern of active ignorance. Zoë quickly draped his arm back over her shoulder and they continued their slow stumble to _Serenity_.

"Will he be ok?" Inara sounded concerned, more than Zoë expected in truth.

"He needed a transfusion more than anything. The injuries themselves were clean, nothing major was damaged that will take long for him to heal from." Simon answered absently as he fiddled with an IV that he had dripping blood into the unconscious merc's arm; blood he had drawn from his sister. She was the only match on the ship to Jayne. Simon spared a wry grin at the morbid humor in that. One killer to another he thought before stopping himself from continuing down that road. His sister wasn't a killer, wasn't like Jayne at all.

"How long til he is awake?" Zoë asked softly.

"Soon, he never seems to stay under as long as I think he should. The drugs flush through his system unusually fast." Simon replied after checking a level on a test he was reading.

"Blood burns the skin, makes the vapors dissipate through membranes. Metabolic processes resorb chemicals and dissolve the constituent components into harmless molecules." River explained helpfully. At least that is what she was trying to do. She contemplated the unconscious man on the medical bed. His face was peaceful, eyes closed, the clear blue of his eyes fogging in her vision. She saw clouds settle over them, reducing their crystalline purity.

"Simon…Simon… the darkness edges in… blurs the lines between light and dusk…" She pulled at Simon's arm, pulling him over to Jayne's side. "Look, look at the red slip in to make the blue dark." She pointed to the IV line, eyes pleading, hands rubbing anxiously.

"Mei mei, it is just blood, he needs it. Lost too much." Simon tried to explain, tone mild and soothing.

"No, no.. the blood, it burns, adds to the fire, makes it burn too hot. Will come out where it should not." River was talking fast, worry tingeing every word.

"No honey, Jayne just needs to rest, the blood won't come out again. Simon fixed him." Zoë laid a placating hand on the young woman's shoulder. Just two weeks after Miranda everyone was beginning to see River as more than a confused girl. This was the worst she had been since then. No one else had seen her weeping, nightmares threatening to overcome her, no one but Jayne.

River looked at Zoë, eyes haunted. "There are secrets no one told, so many secrets no one told, even she doesn't see them all."

Inara joined Zoë in trying to comfort River, "Sweetie, some secrets stay that way for a reason. Sometimes it is better not to know." She spoke with the sadness of loss, loss of all she held right and true. Her own path after Miranda was still unclear. She knew she couldn't forget what she saw, but who did that make her now? Did she really want to unknown what she knew?

"Everything changed, everything shifted… Loss and gains. New chances for hardened souls. River looked over her shoulder at Jayne, looked back at Zoë and Inara. "New feelings… found family, won't let it go for old wants. .. No power in the 'verse can take that away." River said the last with confidence, unusual to hear. She had seen what the others had not, a new chance. Jayne who would rather die himself than let her be harmed by Badger.

_bu zhong yong_ unfit for anything/no good/useless/

_chwen joo_ retarded pig

_wu zou miaozi_ filthy barbaric

_xiăo tōu_ thief

_gûnkāi_ fuck off

_wo de ma_Oh God


	4. Chapter 4

Aftermath Part 4 

He felt it, felt fire coursing through his veins. Not the figurative sensation of heat, but the agony of flame eating him from the inside. He struggled to wake, to move, to escape the burn. He couldn't move, no sound could pass his parched lips. Throat constricted with the smoke of the blaze in his body. Behind closed eyes, he felt himself turning to ash and smoke as the fire ate away all that was him.

And he could do nothing.

"He seems to be staying under longer than you expected Doctor?" Zoë questioned as she came through the infirmary to check on Jayne two days after the incident with Badger and the shooting.

Simon shook his head in slight confusion as he checked the readings on the monitors. "I know Zoë, I don't have an explanation for you… he is simply not waking up. All the readings are normal, better than normal in fact, as is usual for him. But I don't know why he is still unconscious."

Zoë looked down at the quiescent mercenary, not liking his continued lack of awareness. She couldn't remember the last time she saw him out for more than a few hours. It made her uncomfortable in ways she wasn't sure she could or would want to articulate. Except she knew _Serenity_ needed more of her crew not on injury leave.

"Doctor, tell me true, how badly was he injured? There was an awful lot of blood on the street when I found him…?" Zoë asked softly, hand gently reaching out towards Jayne, stopping before making contact and withdrawing, seeing River slip in beside her. The young woman studied the large man. Eyes flicked across his face, down to the dressing visible across his shoulder and then to the larger bandage around his thigh. An IV still fed into his right arm, red bag hanging suspended next to him.

"Well, the thigh was a through and through, lots of blood loss no question, but he was lucky it just nicked his femoral artery. He would have been dead in minutes if it had been a cleaner shot. It helped that he tourniqueted it as soon as he did, even though I usually discourage tourniquets… cuts off the circulation. He would have lost the leg if he hadn't gotten back here when he did though. .." Simon checked Jayne's pupil response to a pen light, nothing.

"Doctor…" Zoë pressed Simon for more.

"He was lucky Zoë, the injuries really aren't what are keeping him here. The shoulder was torn across, but again, nothing he hasn't had worse before. I really don't know." Simon looked at the tall woman, trying to convey his mystification.

"Told you, wouldn't listen… fire will come out again… red brings the blue to darkness… you won't like it…" River said to Simon, tone accusing. He didn't know how to take his sister's vehemence.

"Mei mei, I don't understand… What won't I like?" Simon was befuddled, a state he despised and yet found himself in far too often.

"You added fuel to the fire, made one like the other without the controls…" She stopped looking at Jayne and turned to her brother, "He will be mad when he wakes up."

Simon nearly laughed until he saw the utter seriousness of her face. "River, Jayne is always mad when he wakes up, especially when he is injured. It is his way of being, well, himself." Simon tried to sooth his sister.

"No, he will be different, he is more, less, changed… time will now pass in intervals too unpredictable to calculate." She turned back to Jayne, sadness in her every movement. Reached out and gently laid her hand on his cheek, gazed for a time at him. "It will get easier, I promise." She whispered softly, only Zoë heard her unless Jayne was able to hear in his unconscious state.

When he woke it was deep night, the darkest period between dark and dawn. Simon was asleep on the couch in the lounge, so he did not see the big man lurch upright, gasping for breath. Sweat glistened on his brow, hair was matted to his head. His eyes stole around the room, looking for the fire he thought he could smell, the smokiness filling his senses.

Nothing, the infirmary was clean and neat as always, nothing but cool metal walls and orderly supplies. He saw the IV line descending into his arm, the red bag above him almost empty.

_Serenity_ was on night power, he could feel the hum of the generators through the floor; hear the hiss of the air circulators. They were still grounded on Persephone, he could smell the dry/sweet smells of the Docks. Fuel odors hung over the usual smells of the old Firefly; rust, oil, cooked soy protein, and apples. Apples? His nose tickled at that. Smoke and apples.

Without regard for the care that Simon had been using to resupply Jayne with lost blood, he tore the IV out of his arm, and swung his legs over the side of the medical bed. He barely restrained himself from an exclamation of pain when he put weight on the injured leg.

Ignoring the pain of the healing gunshot wound to his leg, Jayne drew himself upright, feeling the fire still in his veins, still burning. He shook his head, sweat stung his eyes. He followed the scent of apples, the smoke itself trapped in his awareness. He moved silently, feet bare, metal grating feeling cool and soothing to his overheated senses.

Apples, there were apples somewhere. He followed the trail, out and up the stairs to the galley. Dim lights through the ship lit a shadowy path. His feet knew the way but were unfamiliar with the touch of the ship with no barriers. Bare feet felt the metal plates, cooling as he tread. He spared no thoughts for the new sensation, committed only to finding the source of the scent that overpowered everything but the smokiness.

She had taken to traveling around _Serenity_ when everyone slept; it was quieter then, no one was bustling about repairing the broken Firefly. She would caress the walls as she passed, feel the return of life to the iron bird. Each night new connections were made, fluids flowed through more of the ship. She smiled at the new discoveries. When the water systems were reconnected the audible pop and creak of pipes carrying the life fluid again warmed her.

Turning into the galley, she nearly collided with Jayne. He was hunting for her, she could see it even though she couldn't feel past the smoke in his thoughts.

They stopped moving, she studied him carefully, slightly anxious at her inability to read him. His look alone would have sent anyone else into retreat. Instead, River leaned in closer, looked up into his eyes intently, "Will be different now… will feel what she does in her veins, become like her, will come to her when temporal cycles dictate… adding fire to the flame."

Jayne shook his head, confused, pulled back, "Don't know which tree ya fell outta this time, but I ain't nothin' like you Crazy person. Ruttin' told ya before, I ain't gonna be there lookin' fer ya when ya go all monkeyshit again…"

"Won't, not crazy anymore. Found the safe place to go…" River smiled at that.

"Well, like I said, don't go ta lookin' for it from me." Jayne started to turn away from her, irritated that all he could do was think how much she smelled like apples. It made him worry that he might be going crazy himself.

"You saved Zoë, made her safe… said little man in a hat wouldn't be allowed to have her…" Jayne whipped back around towards River, eyes growing darker.

"Ya don't know what yer talkin' 'bout." He growled out, not wanting the girl to know his original reason for going out was his own effort at dealing with Badger. Dealings that went wrong when Badger threatened to come and take River from _Serenity_. Jayne didn't want to think to hard on why that had bothered him so much. Meant that he would have to look at the last few weeks since Miranda from a different perspective that he wasn't ready to acknowledge.

Now, the only thing that he wanted to think on was why he had flames coursing through his veins, burning sensation he had never felt before. Taste in his mouth of char and blood and death. He looked at the girl/woman and wonders what her blood feels like to her. Thoughts come to a crashing, tumbling halt… He was wondering how her blood felt? Jayne recoiled from himself, from her… stepped backwards too quickly on his injured leg, stumbled and slipped against the doorframe. River didn't approach him, watched him grab at the frame, twisting his shoulders as he struggled to maintain his feet. Her eyes saddened.

"He will see now, will know what happens in the paths of red, not just girl being crazy." River made the pronouncement, voice pitched low.

"What are ya goin' on about?" Jayne blurted out, not meaning to.

"Simon gave you her blood… gave you a view of her insides no one else has. Will feel, be let free to feel… no controls." She said that last part in an inaudible whisper.

Jayne snorted to cover his unease, not liking the sound of River's prediction. He felt angry, frustrated, pain… he didn't realize then that he would be feeling all those things for months until he could shake the red off of his perceptions. Until the girl became a woman to him, and drew him out. Until then, he would close everyone out, shut the doors of perception, let no one see who he was becoming. He even closed himself away.

Wasn't until Mal called him on it nearly eight months later that he remembered that he hadn't always felt angry and infuriated. Remembered that there was a time he had been just a man, simple and straightforward.

Right then though, Mal was still recovering, he wasn't even on the ship yet, and Jayne had become the man everyone turned to for decisions. Zoë was trapped in her own cycle of regret and recovery that would take her down paths of recrimination that no one could free her from. Simon reluctantly saw Jayne was handling the responsibility of getting _Serenity _airborne again much more competently than he could have foreseen. Kaylee was just happy to be working, fresh in discovering that Simon was interested in her as well. And Inara, Inara was using her considerable contacts and influence with local officials to smooth the repairs on _Serenity_ as much as possible.

The problem of the converter still remained after Badger had turned down Jayne and Zoë in their quest to acquire a replacement. And now Jayne was shifting again. The ground under his feet was becoming slippery.

Simon found Jayne early when he came awake and saw the big man wasn't in the infirmary anymore. Jayne had fallen asleep on the couch off the galley.

"You really need to be in the infirmary." Simon said as gently as possible to the merc as he woke him up.

"Hu?… hmmm…What?" Jayne mumbled in reply. Rubbed his eyes irritably, trying to clear them from a persistent red haze.

"You need to be in the infirmary so I can monitor your injuries… and you could use more…" Simon was beginning to go on in his doctor voice, the voice that Jayne only heard as a monotonous hum.

"Well, I ain't goin' Doc, yer just gonna have ta mon-itor from here." Jayne grumbled. He needed to be getting back to work, didn't want to be hampered by the pansy ass idea of laying around being poked and prodded.

"I am not comfortable with…" Simon tried to continue only to be cut off by Jayne.

"Well, we all know that Doc., hell ya make the rest a us all uncomfortable with yer _go se_." Jayne teased ungently, pushing his way past the smaller man. "I'm goin' ta work, ya ain't gonna be getting' any more monitorin' time now…" Jayne made his way to his bunk and somehow made it down with only one good arm and leg.

Do the job, that was Mal's motto, and now Simon decided it appeared to have become Jayne's as well. He rocked back on his heels as he watched the merc limp out; wondered who the big man was revealing. Not sure he was unhappy about the change to be truthful. And that in and of itself surprised him.

"Gorramnit Zoë, we gotta get that converter, and Mr. Cairo is the only _hun dahn_ on this rock who's got any…" Jayne snarled out after Zoë's multiple rejections of the idea.

"We ain't goin' to Mr. Cairo, not ever going to be that desperate for no one thing." Zoë replied, more vehemence in her voice than any of them had heard in a long time.

They were gathered for dinner around the table, Zoë, Jayne, Simon, Kaylee, Inara and River. Mal was still in the med shuttle and the conversation was growing heated.

"I'm goin' tomorrow, need the part, no way we're goin' anywhere without it." Jayne stated bluntly.

"I don't think… I mean… you are still recovering…" Simon tried to sound certain, but faltered at the look of recrimination from his sister. "Mei mei, he was shot, and even an ape-man needs time…"

"Doc get off your _go se_ high horse for once and _bi zui_." Jayne snapped back, "We done gottin' past that or we ain't goin' no where…" Jayne stared Simon down, treating the younger man to a view of Jayne's place on the crew now. The chain of command really did include Jayne, and much higher up the rankings than Simon. Zoë and Inara didn't try to stop Jayne from asserting himself this time, and that made Simon back down more than anything Jayne could say.

Jayne turned back to Zoë, "We need it, I'm goin' ta get it. There ain't no more to it than that." He finished and dug back into his dinner.

"Jayne, you know more than I do what Mr. Cairo will ask in return… he scares Badger…"

"Well, that ain't hard, little piss'ant's pretty easy ta scare." Jayne replied around a mouthful off food.

"And that would be why Badger shot you? Near killed you in fact." Zoë retorted.

Jayne snorted in disgust, "Two-bit little lordling don't know how ta do a job right is how I see it."

"He nearly killed you Jayne!" Inara interrupted.

"But he didn't now did he?" Jayne turned to the pale Companion. "I'm here, ain't gonna let Badger be more than he is."

Inara was surprised at how being in a position of command had actually made Jayne less of a ignorant merc and more of a hard-headed decision maker, more like Mal than she could ever expected. She sighed, tilted her head in acquiescence. "Maybe so, but I think we are all seriously concerned that being driven to work with Mr. Cairo is not in our best interests."

"Won't be a problem… Mr. Cairo will deal." Jayne said with finality, "He owes me."

Everyone stopped in mid-chew, mid-movement and just stared at Jayne who didn't acknowledge any of their looks. He ate with total attention on his food.

Zoë spoke very clearly, very slowly, "What would the biggest slaver, drug-lord and Alliance dirty work contact have that he would be owing you for Jayne?"

Without looking up from his food, talking past a mouthful, "Wet work… done him a job some years back… never got paid."

"And why would he pay now?" Inara asked.

"Cause I'll kill him if'n he don't." Jayne responded curtly.

"Jayne, you can't just…just walk in a say that to him… I mean, this is the man we all heard about when we were being bad kids… nighttime stories, you know…" Kaylee said, words falling fast from her lips.

"I can, and I'm gonna. Ya need that converter, right?" Jayne turned to the visibly upset mechanic.

"Well, yeah, but… but there's gotta be another way ta get one?"

"You tell me what it is Kaylee-girl and I'll go do it, but I know there ain't none a them just layin' around. Ain't a 'Nothin' part." He finished a bit harshly. Kaylee nearly burst into tears at that direct comment about the catalyzer from nearly a year ago.

"You still haven't explained why he is going to just give you the part." Zoë said icily.

"Two a' them actually." Jayne went back to his food again. "Two converters. Kaylee done been warblin' for 'em… So, will need ta get 'em."

River had watched the whole exchange carefully, could read Zoë's confusion. The First Mate couldn't fit the new information about the merc in with the old. Her thoughts jumbled and jostled each other. Inara was reciting a prayer of guidance and calm, trying to remain passive in expression despite wanting to know more about Jayne's dealings with the worst crime lord in the 'verse. No one dealt with Mr. Cairo that did not need to, and here Jayne was saying he had, and had walked away being owed for the work. This did not fit into anyone's paradigm for the big man.

Kaylee didn't want everyone arguing, but she knew Jayne was right, _Serenity_ needed the parts and that was that. Simon was just trying to slot new information in with the old, not knowing who Mr. Cairo was.

"Umm, I know I am missing more than a little about this Mr. Cairo… but why…" Simon began.

"Cause I got his little girl out of that 'school' yer sister was in." Jayne answered bluntly, throwing his fork down. "Got 'er out, killed a bunch a folks ta do it, near killed her too… but got her out. That what ya wanted to know Doc!" Jayne snapped at the paling young man.

River recoiled, hands covered her ears, head ducked, "No, no… didn't want…"

"Jayne! You're scaring River!" Inara had gathered the girl in her arms, shushing her.

"You never said anything…how could you say nothing...when you knew…" Simon angrily demanded, fury in his voice clear.

"Cause there weren't nothin' ta been told 'fore now… all noble and darin' what ya done fer yer sister, but tellin' ya more… well, that wouldn't a done a bit a nothin' now would it?" Jayne retorted with a snort.

"You didn't think…" Zoë began.

"NO, I didn't Zo! And there ain't no no how it woulda done ya a bit a good ta know. Woulda gotten tossed out the air lock if Mal found out, and there weren't nothin' Mal needed to know anyhow. I did the job, been waitin' ta get paid til it were worth it… Seems like now would be that time, dong ma?" Jayne bit off further comments as he pushed back from the table, leaving his plate where it was and stalking out with a minimal limp.

There was a silent pause before Inara and Zoë made eye contact. "He ain't wrong." Zoë began.

"But is it really wise for him to go to Mr. Cairo?" Inara asked softly, still stroking the upset River's hair.

"No, but I am not seein' as we have a choice in it. Badger made it clear he wouldn't deal." Zoë replied, irritation in her voice.

"Why would the Captain toss Jayne if he found out he had worked for Mr. Cairo?" Kaylee asked softly.

"No one works for Mr. Cairo and then leaves without being found and killed, along with whoever they are with. Not unlike Operatives. Only on the other side of the law most times. Even the Alliance leaves a wide berth for Mr. Cairo." Zoë answered quietly.

"Umm, who exactly is this Mr. Cairo?" Simon asked uncertainly, "He can't be as bad…"

"Worse Doctor. He may have a little girl like your sister here, but that would be the only thing about him that is human. Imagine a Reaver who ain't insane, who don't eat your flesh, he just takes all that is worth anything from anything he touches. Men like him can't exist with others like them. Jayne going to him is as close to a death sentence as I know… let's just hope the girl is worth as much to him as River is to you Doctor." Zoë finished, clearly not wanting to speak more about it.

"Coming." River said bluntly to Jayne as he was buckling on his gun and checking it for ammo. Unnecessary checking, but one he did every time he left the ship.

"No yer not." He grumbled back.

"Yes, am coming, will be useful." She replied.

"No. Yer. Not." He answered, clipping each word as he said it.

"Will remind him why he must repay the debt." She whispered sidling up close to the mercenary.

"Gorramnit girl, get away from me!" Jayne almost jumped back at her close proximity. "Ya ain't comin', not arguin' with ya."

"Can't stop me." She said almost sadly.

He considered that for a beat. "Awright then, but ya ain't bringin' a gun…"

"Don't need one." She answered, eyes almost black with unshed emotion.

"No, I don't guess ya do." Jayne replied, voice barely hiding admiration. River looked up at him, surprised to hear him sound that way. She wished not for the last time, that she could see his thoughts, feel the texture of them like she could everyone else. All she got when she peered into the recesses was dark, fog roiling away from her touch. It compelled her like very little else did. She wondered if he could feel his blood flow through him like she could feel hers.

"Ya ready?" He asked after what felt like an interminable time.

"As ever."


	5. Chapter 5

**Aftermath Part 5**

"Ya let me do all the talkin', dong ma?" Jayne said as he drove the mule through the crowded alleys around Eavesdown Docks. He grimaced when the mule slung around corners, his leg aching from the bullet he took just a few days past. His skin was hot and burnt out feeling. The temperatures were cool and damp even as he felt like dry flames licked through his veins.

River nodded in compliance careful to not look at people as they made their way out of the poorer part of the port city and into residential neighborhoods with scattered businesses. She could hear all their voices as a murmur and crash of sound. By keeping her eyes cast away, her thoughts could stay her own more easily. Next to her, she could feel the smoky heat that was Jayne emanating outwards. River drew that smoke around herself, trying to shield herself from the worst of the dissonance of the multitude of voices crowding the streets.

The swirls of color and fog around Jayne buffeted her senses, pressed into areas of memory she had partitioned away. She wavered between letting the voices of the strangers on the street and Jayne's turmoil guide her own reality. The third possibility, finding her own space buttressed on each side was new and unfamiliar. Despite that, River chose the path she had never taken before. Her own self, not dictated to her by family, teachers, doctors with questionable ethics.

Jayne drove swiftly, barely avoiding attracting the attention of Fed officers that patrolled the city. His focus was on getting to Mr. Cairo's, getting the converters and returning to _Serenity_ without getting shot again. The leg and shoulder wounds he had sustained recently were not nearly enough healed for him to be out and active, but Mal was still being held by the Med personnel after the fighting on Mr. Universe's and Zoë was in no state to be bargaining with her thoughts still on her deceased husband. That left him to get the deal done. River coming with him was an unexpected complication.

Mood black, the people on the street barely registered except as a blur of scent and color. He catalogued absently the vendors of meats and spices as he swiftly flew by, the unwashed urchins begging for handouts at the edges of prosperity. Uncharacteristically he found no cheer in the freedom from Mal's orders. The need for the converters drove him to ignore the distractions that usually enticed him. Seeing, scenting, cataloguing dangers and threats; that was what occupied his thoughts. And percolating rage under it all, a crawling sensation under his skin.

"We're almost there… no goin' monkeyshit on me now, ya got me?" Jayne said as he slung the mule into a berth outside a row of shops.

"She will not… will keep the other's out of her head… shall not let their thoughts get in." River shivered involuntarily, a sense that the one who was not totally in control of their actions was not her. She spared a probing thought and came against roiling greys and blues. Any clarity she had ever had in seeing what happened behind the eyes of the scowling mercenary was totally fogged.

"Right, well, stay close… done 't want ta be worryin' on where ya are." He said gruffly.

"Will be shielded…" River murmured, "Will draw the smokescreen close."

"Mr. Cobb, did not expect to be seeing you on this side of Persephone again." The man spoke with an educated accent. Swarthy and slick, Mr. Cairo looked like the diamond merchant his storefront advertised him to be. Genteel, elegantly dressed and with a bearing to be comfortable in the upper reaches of society.

"Ain't here fer a social visit." Jayne replied sourly. He hated having to come asking for a deal with Mr. Cairo, hated the smell of the man. He was just wrong to Jayne's perception. Humans smelled a certain way, even Reavers had some element of it, but Mr. Cairo's scent was as he remembered, false, hollow humanity with no richness of flavor to it.

"Indeed, I expect not." Smoothly slipping out from behind the counter separating them, he gestured for Jayne and River to follow him to the back. Jayne kept one hand resting lightly on one of his favorite guns, the LeMat; Jeanie.

River stayed within arms reach as they made their way back. She watched his strong, silent tread unimpaired by the limp he had had earlier. A jolt of hardness shot through the smoke of his emotions at each step; the only display of the pain his leg must be causing him. Jayne went through two swinging metal doors first. He glanced around the room, taking in a beautiful wood roll top desk, Oriental rugs on the floor and a sitting area with a couch and two loungers. The room was warm and comfortable, a sparing attempt at sophistication. Except for them the only other person present was what looked like a young girl. She was clearly related to Mr. Cairo. Same complexion and features, but with blank eyes. She couldn't see them at all, her head tilted as she listened to the three enter the room.

"Mira, we have visitors." Mr. Cairo said as an introduction.

"I know them… he who came for me before… and she, she has been in my thoughts." Mira replied. Voice distant and uninflected. When she spoke her age clearly showed as much older than she looked.

"Yes, he is the one who brought you back to me. I do not know the other." Her father replied.

Mira turned her sightless eyes towards Jayne, "You should have left me there." River stifled a small gasp. Mira's thoughts crashed into her mind with no filters. Anger and hate and repressed desires. Mira wanted what they had done to River to have been done to her. She wanted to be the weapon they had made River into. River swayed back from the vitriol, the waves of naked desire threatening to break through her carefully constructed barriers.

"Mira I have explained to you, you are much more valuable to me here than you would have been to the Alliance." Mr. Cairo said with tired tone of one who had had to explain something countless times. 

"Twenty years I have been your Reader and now you bring the man who made me come back to you here, with a weapon, a complete weapon. Is this supposed to make me feel better? Knowing what I could have become?" Mira shook her head in resentment.

River stayed as close to Jayne as she dared, used his bulk and his smoke to block most of the older woman's thoughts. His own rages rippled through the veil of darkness that clouded his thoughts. River felt power stalking around her, memories of dreams filled with visions of a massive bruin became near real in the empty air around him. She bit the inside of her cheek to keep from gasping; realizing the terrible truth she had suspected; all the while trapped in a bargain she couldn't influence.

"Ain't here ta hear 'bout yer life, just want ta get payment on a job is all." Jayne said gruffly, not liking the direction Mira was moving the conversation. He could feel River next to him, knew she was nearly vibrating. This was not going well. He hated to be in this kind of environment. He had no bearings amongst comfortable furnishings, fine rugs, and warm rooms. Not to mention another crazy person. He knew there had to be guards somewhere near, but he couldn't figure where. The air smelled wrong; too filtered, disguising other scents, other people nearby.

"Yes, well dear, we both know you wouldn't have made it past the third year… required control you would never have mastered." Her father replied to Mira before turning back to Jayne.

"Now, Mr. Cobb, tell me where my benefit is to pay you for what clearly was an error of action in Mira's mind?" Mr. Cairo asked smoothly.

"Cursed me to live here, to not staying where I was happy." Mira added.

Neither sounded emotional at all which made both Jayne and River stiffen.

"Job was done, ya got yer daughter back, way I see it, ya owe me my pay and agreed ta pay it when I came for it. Two converters, that's all I'm lookin' for." Jayne's voice was barely audible, his control nearly eroded. Rover shrank inside, waited for the next reaction calmly.

"Two converters! My life is worth only that?" Mira sounded shocked, blind eyes widened involuntarily.

River leaned into Jayne, thoughts assaulted by Mira's internal visions. Memories of a young man with thick curls and drab green military clothes bursting through a door, guns in each hand, eyes hard and clear. Memories of being pulled down a corridor in a running gunfight, explosions going off behind them as they ran. River gasped as shooting pain arced through her, throwing her into Jayne's bulk.

"Hey, what…" Jayne grunted and caught the girl before she could move away again.

"Shot, she was shot in the rescue…" River whispered, eyes wide and frightened at the vehemence of Mira's and Jayne's moods. Mira's she could understand as it reminded her of her own memories of the Academy. Jayne held her tight to him, left arm curved around her body, emotions of a much younger man coursing past the years to expand in River's mind as full and real.

"I know that, I was there…" Jayne replied curtly. He remembered the break-in, the using his position as a security guard to gain access to the lower levels of the facility. He had had entry codes to the whole facility, hadn't known what they were doing there. Didn't care overmuch as it was a steady job that paid well. Didn't care until he saw the first young 'students', saw their destruction as humans. It was early in the Academy's charter.

Jayne had been there when the first failures were let go. Teenage boys and girls, eyes frantic, body language radiating anxiety, were sent home. Jayne had begun to see the damages before most others, his youthful hunting skills were put into use in an unexpected way. The boys and girls that left smelled of fear, walked like victims, prey. He could still recall with clarity the look in their eyes as they passed him at the last checkpoint. It was the look of an animal trapped with no chance of survival, of freedom even as they walked on their own feet back to their families.

He had hunted and trapped for survival on the Rim planet he was born on; knew how an animal waiting to die would writhe, eyes darting, looking for an escape that would never come. Seeing humans with that look; barely grown children already given up on survival while struggling against internal demons that would never ease sent him to seek relief from the days by living fully in the nights. Jayne sectioned off his feelings, never let himself compare the students at the Academy with his siblings at home. He was just a young man himself, life was before him. His Ma would receive letters from her eldest son that talked of the weather, sports, maybe a little of local gossip; he never told her about the job, the drinking and girls he went to to forget. He sent money home but not the ugliness of the life he had followed.

It had been months later when Mr. Cairo had approached him on a cold night when he was trying to drown the vision of the last girl from his eyes. A now nearly empty bottle of whiskey hadn't been able to do the job. The girl's haunted eyes, the sheen of fear sweat on her skin, and hair tangled over her shoulders, twined around her long throat had burned themselves into his mind so deeply that he saw her there still, 20 years later. A girl who had looked eerily like River in his remotest memories. River swayed in his grasp, barely able to remain silent. Jayne pressed the vision of that faraway girl back into dark recesses, not wanting to let himself see the similarity. When River had emerged from the cryo-box near a year earlier Jayne had had to tell himself it was a different girl. But still the image haunted him if he let it have space. The passage of time and more empty bottles than could be counted littered the wake of that memory.

Mr. Cairo had offered more money than Jayne had ever conceived of for the rescue of Mira. The whiskey had blurred his reason Jayne decided later; he had accepted the job for a fraction of the payment in advance with the balance to be collected later. When the payment turned out to be a girl in trade for Mira, Jayne had recoiled, seeing only another victim in the young girls expression. It was a defining moment in his own young life. He had turned down the payment of a crime-lord, a man known for his willingness to sacrifice anyone in his organization for his own ends. The intervening years had been shaped by that decision on Jayne's part. Occasional thoughts of turning to the trade of girls had passed his mind before he remembered the look of loss on that first young girl's face. He had held her future in his hands.

Now he had another young girl beside him, a girl someone had let into that hell, had opened up and recreated in their own vision. She quivered almost imperceptibly under his touch. He didn't know his own desires and passions were causing the worst of the shakes.

"I know, I was there." He repeated, almost gentle as he felt River's body stiffen and then relax. She looked up at him, saw for a brief flash the sadness of years in his eyes before they clouded dark and angry again as he looked back at Mr. Cairo.

"We just be needin' those converters, will be leavin' and ya won't be seein' us again." Jayne said, cool and calm sounding. He was neither inside.

The older man considered the pair facing him, felt the young woman's mind prying into his thoughts. He had had far to many years of experience with his own daughter to let anyone in past the externals unless he desired it. He grinned wryly, knowing that he could tear a hole so wide through the girl that she would never be able to think again. When he switched his gaze to Jayne's face, he stepped back inside, recoiled from what looked back at him. It was the same dark he felt from his daughter and when he glanced at the girl, from her. Mr. Cairo frowned, brow furrowed, confused. He knew Jayne had never been a student, but he held in his eyes the same darkness, the impenetrable unknowable. Except with the big man it was unshielded, untamed by blocks.

Mr. Cairo sneered when he saw the naked knowledge in the young girls eye that he had found something new about the mercenary. "Maybe we skip past the insult to my daughter's value Mr. Cobb and exact a price for that disrespect." The dark man smiled slowly, thinking very clearly back to when he had seen that same dark emptiness in his daughter's eyes. Eyes he had taken from her to bind her to him. A twist on a loving father unwilling to let his child go. Mr. Cairo had never felt guilt for the crime he committed on his own flesh and blood.

River straightened, stood tall and separate from Jayne again, "Blinded… blinded by her pater…took her eyes when he knew she could see…"

Mr. Cairo's expression darkened, his hand strayed towards his desk. He was going to end this charade before it went any further.

Jayne drew the LeMat, "You keep yer hands right there, we got no need ta be getting' involved with yer doin's… just want the parts and we'll be on our way." He felt River beside him even though she was no longer under his arm.

"Mr. Cobb you are making a grave mistake here. Your life is forfeit the moment your finger twitches, as is your young companion's. As it stands now you are already engaging in a gamble even coming to me." Mr. Cairo spoke calmly, unconcerned apparently by the muzzle of the gun pointed unerringly towards his head. Angling his head towards his daughter, "Mira?"

"Cannot penetrate to see intent. He may well decide it is a good day to die." The woman replied, absently picking at a fingernail.

River leaned against Jayne's side, keeping her eyes downcast, whispered to him, "She is trying to get in… she is looking for what you will do."

"I know that," he responded gruffly, "Not getting' that it don't bother me none ta take yer Pa out are ya?" He directed that to Mira while keeping a hard eye on Mr. Cairo.

"And where will you then go to acquire those converters you need Mr. Cobb?" Mr. Cairo responded.

"With you gone, don't see as how that'll be a problem since the parts don't vanish if you do. Got a nice little organization back on the docks, fair sure I can convince 'em ta let me have 'em once they find out what I done." Jayne answered. He felt River still trembling. Was hoping she would be able to control herself long enough to get out of there. "Don't right cotton ta a man who brings harm on his own… may be what is said is true… say yer a man who'll give up any man if they ain't got no value ta ya, and even if they do, just ta fill yer own needs fer pride or credit… I ain't here ta judge that. Just want what's owed and then we'll be on our way."

Mr. Cairo didn't move, Mira remained seated, head cocked, concentrating. River stabilized her own center, drew herself away from the anger of Mira. A brief flash of memory, Jayne's memory, came clearly to her. A young man having a steady job as security guard at the newly built Academy; he had walked the halls and tunnels of the facility before any of the 'students' had been brought there. Jayne had been supporting his mother since he was able. She swayed again, buffeted by the new knowledge. She caught the briefest flash of revulsion from his young mind at the horror of witnessing a broken girl, needle marks on her face still fresh, shaved hair revealing scalpel wounds at the back of the her head.

Jayne glanced down at her, his eyes clearly troubled. River knew he was engaged in a battle of wills with himself. A battle she knew would end with violence. She permitted herself a tiny smile, a dance of violence was still a dance.

"There… you were there…" River whispered, new waves of pain and self-recrimination filling the spaces between the impenetrable smoky spaces in Jayne.

"Yeah… and got out when I could…" He answered curtly, continued more sadly, "Weren't, couldn't stay and watch what they done ta them… to you…"

"You left solely for a job that paid more coin Mr. Cobb. Don't credit yourself with virtues that you don't own." Mr. Cairo interjected, eyes still calm in the face of a steady gun. The merchant criminal itched inside to wipe from the big man's eyes the blue-black emptiness that exposed an angry hatred for him. To erase them like he had erased his daughter's when she had revolted against his tearing her from the school.

Mira had never wanted to leave, had relished the changes wrought by scalpel and drug. Mr. Cairo's daughter had been made into a creature of desires, a Reader that he had used to become the central figure in the highest echelons of power in not only the criminal underworld, but the Alliance itself. A Reader had allowed him the poison he needed to direct government to his own needs.

And here a man from 20 years ago stood, another Reader at his side, a completed weapon herself. Mr. Cairo was feeling the first inclinations of threat to himself that he could remember.

River reached towards the older man's mind, felt for his intentions and found only a grinning charade, a construct designed to block views of his deeper self. Her concentration was such that Jayne sensed the change in the air first. The circulation shifted, a new scent entered the mix. Men, slightly frightened, sour sweat under sweet soap smells. Three guards entered the room silently from behind Jayne and River, door opened silently only a soft flow of new air across the back of his neck letting Jayne know they were entering. He curled his lip in disgust. Armed guards exposing fear. He knew the outcome would be flavored by that. Fear of their boss, of him, and of the girl beside him.

"Some of that coin is still owed, " Jayne continued even as the men ranged out behind them. Sourness followed the men, allowed him to follow their movements without turning from his focus on Mr. Cairo and Mira.

"Today I think is not the day you will be collecting on that debt Mr. Cobb." Mr. Cairo turned, body language dismissive as his men closed on Jayne and River.

A blur and a crunch of bone on boot followed River's swirling kick at the man reaching for her, hands grasping empty air. Jayne's slung his fist heavy with the weight of the LeMat across the oncoming charge of a second, felt the contact of jaw to knuckle with the jaw giving way first. Third man went to draw arms, heavy gun slowing his motion enough for two strikes to connect. Jayne's fist throwing his head back and River's flat kick catching him in the solar plexus, propelling him backwards into a wall.

Jayne swayed on his good leg, felt the tear of stitches across his thigh. There was no pain as he pushed himself at the back of the turned merchant. He brought them both down in a crash, burying his hand in the Mr. Cairo's beautifully cut hair, dragging the man's face up to look him in the eye.

"I will get paid today, and we will be walkin' out a' here with no more trouble." Jayne snarled, gun muzzle pressed to a smooth, dark temple.

Mr. Cairo's neck was held in a torque that made swallowing much less talking difficult. The men's faces were inches apart, he could see the flicker of something wild, inhuman in the big mercenary's gaze. His face was contorted in a grimace of pain and rage that sent a shiver down Mr. Cairo's back.

River stood with casual insouciance over the fallen guards, stance prepared and controlled. Mira laughed, glee infused her. River slowly turned her gaze to the blind woman, saw the insanity that had threatened her fully realized in the other woman's soul. She knew then that she had truly not become what Simon had feared in his worst nights. River still had a piece of herself that was bright and real, a piece she shielded from the pollution of psychosis; that she borrowed strength from Jayne to guard.

Jayne's eyes moved to take in the laughing woman, heard clearly the last vestiges of sanity wiped clean from her voice. Mira had died many long years ago, only a crazy broken minded woman remained. He knew then that those young girls and boys he had watched drag from the Academy were all broken, lost souls. He felt sweat burn his eyes, tears of salt down his forehead, trailing across his burning skin.

Jayne felt creeping fingers pawing through his thoughts, tearing into his private stores, places he never let anyone see. Mira turned her head to look right at him with unseeing eyes. River stepped over to the stand near the big mercenary still pinning down Mr. Cairo. Jayne spared a glance up at River, saw the girl was contemplating the other woman.

"There is nothing to see, you won't find him… he hides to well, has been hiding for too many years for one such as you to find… even had you the time…" River spoke sadly, her voice sounding almost defeated.

Jayne heard her, saw the dawning comprehension on Mira's face, the beginnings of a physical reaction. Still laughing even as her body shifted from lounging to intensity. Had she eyes, he would have guaranteed she was planning on leaping at River. And then she did.

Without hesitating he brought Jeanie to bear, a quick tap and a red flower bloomed across Mira's brow. The laugh stopped, shocked silence filled the room. Jayne could hear the pounding of his blood in his head, feel the rush of it painfully through his veins. The fingers no longer crawled through his mind.

He turned his eyes down to the upturned face of the man below him. "This ends now." Jayne spit out, pulling Mr. Cairo's face closer to his own contorted growl, "Yer done, gave you yer blood back and ya made her a monster… no better than a monster yerself."

As he talked he had replaced the LeMat with sharpened steel, long blade honed to a scalpel edge. He didn't want to sully Jeanie's history with the elimination of a monster. He drew the knife infinitely slow across the exposed dark throat of man he held pinned down.

Mr. Cairo's eyes widened in fear and then panic when he felt the sharp blade cut into his neck. He could do nothing, could not move, not fight free, his last moment was seeing his daughter slumped dead on a chair before him and then his own blood filled his vision. The time he took to die was quicker than the time it took him to sear his daughter's eyes out. Jayne had done him some justice by not prolonging a death that was more important for happening than for fairness.

Jayne brought himself painfully back to his feet, felt warm stickiness down his leg and on his hands. Blood of Mr. Cairo and himself staining the rug under his feet. He stood and swayed, looking down on the dead man. Was unmoved by what he had just done, looked over to River, her eyes blank, face passive.

"There was nothing to save, had all been erased, last fragments drawn away when light ceased to fall." Her voice betrayed sadness, not recrimination for what Mira had become. He was struck by how her stance echoed the posture she had had when the blast doors had opened to reveal her surrounded by dead Reavers.

Jayne had been killing people by his hand for many years, had made a skill out of doing it well. Rarely was bothered by it. But always thought about it as he did it. Mr. Cairo and Mira he just killed, no thought, no feeling. Was surprised at how easily the crime lord had died, three guards swiftly incapacitated, and that was it. Dead, man died like any other. Difference was how he felt about it. Usually had a surge of adrenaline, a rush that tingled to the ends of his fingertips. Instead there was a hole inside, no pulse of urgency.

He bleakly looked at River, "We gotta be getting' ta the warehouse… it's down near the docks…." Bending down slowly, Jayne grasped the dead man's hand and tore a ring off his left ring finger. A large stone was set in the gold band. Light gleamed rainbow shards from its dark depths. Jayne pocketed the ring and nodded to River his intent to leave.

She was still looking at Mira. "Ya aw right there moon…. ya aw right?" Jayne asked gruffly, finishing more softly. He realized he had just done it, no question of how the girl may react. That slowed him some. He hadn't worried about her response. Brow furrowed, he noted that River hadn't moved except to drop kick two guards. Jayne had snapped and killed the blind woman and her father with no thought at all for setting her off. Then he half-spun to look at the bodies lying in their own blood and knew that he had been the one to snap.

River looked at Jayne clear eyed and calm, "She was gone, could not be saved. Her wings would never spread again. No one could fix that."

Jayne looked at the young woman knowing she truly wasn't a girl any more. Not with what she had seen and done. That slowed his thinking too.

"Was right what you did when you brought her out of there." River spoke, lucid, clear. "She could not have stayed there, was going to be expelled for lack of control… it was before they knew how to correct that."

"Control?" He snorted half-derisive, half-scared at his own response. He turned back to the young woman looking at him, eyes wiser than all his years combined. "I done lost my own self… and I'd wager you know why."

River nodded slightly, "Yes, the fire will burn and ache, try to find egress… would not have chosen that road if there had been a fork available."

"Yer spoutin' gos se…" Jayne shook his head, should have known she wouldn't be makin' no sense.

"You were dying… needed to refill the red… cardiac function would have been compromised if not done." River explained briefly. Turning from the dead woman, River walked quietly ahead of Jayne out of the room, not looking back, not questioning what had just transpired.

He swayed, watched her retreating back, dancer's grace giving her the ethereal lightness of a bird. He shook his head, sweat droplets spilling from his brow. He had lost what he was looking for in his life; lost the simplicity and calm knowledge that he was just a man doing what he could to survive, to make sport of it as long as it lasted.

20 years earlier he had seen what evil was. Now he felt it burn through him. Knew the young woman walking away from him carried the same pain. An anguished cry was trapped in his throat, a sound he wouldn't let pass his lips. He shut down, blocked himself from roaring out his frustration and confusion.

She knew he had burned a new path in his awareness, that a step into darkness had begun that would end when he found his way back to light. A small tear threatened her eye but she wouldn't let it fall. She knew Jayne wouldn't understand. He was going to vanish from all of them as the man they knew. There would be months of nothing but darkness and recrimination for the big man. He would be forced to confront his own anger and hate internally. She only hoped everyone would stay away from asking why. The truth would be too much so soon after Miranda.

(Note: This precedes Five Kisses by about 7 months.)


	6. Chapter 6

Crate shattered as it hit the wall, thrown with enough force to explode the wood slats apart. Guttural roar filled the empty space of the cargo bay. A sobbing gasp, slumping down, head cradled by forearms wrapped around it, knees providing the resting point for elbows. Back pressed against bulkhead, t-shirt stuck to hot skin by sweat. Shaking shoulders, muscles clenched in pain and fear.

A small hand gently strokes short cropped hair, fingers cool against the burning heat. Leaning towards the coolness, breath comes in short gulps, harsh rasping inhales. The desire for violence almost overwhelming. Barely under control.


End file.
